One Sunday last year, Daniel Escobedo, a CAD technician at BE Aerospace’s Machined Products Group (www.beaerospace.com), dragged himself into his office in Compton, California, to tackle a design job that was long overdue. The part in question was the skin of an airplane wing. The reference file he had was a 3D model of the wing section, with the skin already wrapped around the wing structure. The file the manufacturer needed was the shape and profile of the wing skin in its pre-bent state. The geometry of the part itself was fairly straightforward, but the detailed work involved would be time-consuming. Factoring in other assignments already on his plate, Escobedo estimated the job would take him about a week to finish.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a week. The part had already been released for production. He had a grace period of a few days. In the desperate moment, he recalled a friend of his from S.I Aerospace, Inc. mentioning a design service called Innovate3D (www.innovate3d.com). So he reached out to the company, headquartered in Novato, California.

Escobedo’s wing section took a little detour. Compressed into a PDF file, it flew (in a manner of speaking) 8,700 miles to Pune, India, to be received by Nilesh Bansod, a CAD designer working for Innovate3D. A few days later, Bansod returned the wing skin as a SolidWorks file, ready for manufacturing. Tracing the part’s international odyssey and metamorphosis - from a scanned drawing to a production-ready CAD file - revealed a new kind of global collaboration.

From Sketch to CAD

As Escobedo went about his days, Bansod went to work on the part. "Since the input was a scanned format, it restricted measurements," said Bansod. But the digital communication allowed him to obtain the clarifications he needed promptly.

In roughly three days, Escobedo received the SolidWorks file, already inspected by Innovate3D for quality assurance. The company states, "All work goes through a rigorous quality control, with every dimension and detail checked multiple times." Anticipating questions on the handling of proprietary data, Innovate3D announces, "Your data is safe and secure. We routinely handle proprietary data and are accustomed to non disclosure agreements."

The manufacturer Escobedo was working with wanted the model in STEP or IGES format, which was easily reproduced from the SolidWorks file. "The quality of the geometry was very good and the price is very reasonable," said Escobedo. The price was so reasonable that his division paid it out of its own "petty cash."

"I wouldn’t hesitate to use them again," said Escobedo. In fact, he has used Innovate3D since then. When he did, he noted significant improvement in the turnaround time. "The next time I gave them a part, they returned it in a little more than a day," he recalled.

A time-pressed designer from BE Aerospace like Escobedo represents one end of the spectrum of Innovate3D’s customers. On the other end are dreamers and inventors, people with patent-worthy ideas who have little or no CAD skills. Innovate3D is happy to take their napkin drawings and sketches (must be fully dimensioned) and turn them into parts and assemblies in popular CAD and 3D formats.

The finished wing skin delivered as a SolidWorks file.

Innovate3D

Innovate3D came into existence in 2007 as an offshoot of Tenlinks.com (www.tenlinks.com), a CAD/CAM/CAE media company that has been around since 1999. The company specializes in converting 2D drawings into 3D solid models, delivered in SolidWorks, Pro/ENGINEER, Autodesk Inventor, IGES, STEP, or STL file formats. According to Roopinder Tara, the founder and CEO of Innovate3D, SolidWorks is among the most frequently requested file formats.

Tara enlists both local and overseas CAD technicians, allowing him to offer affordable services beginning from $49 per basic part. Optional services include renderings and animation, ideal for brochures, catalogs, and Web sites.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that India, the hotbed of manufacturing, also turns out to be home to a growing SolidWorks community. MACHINIST.in, a CAD/CAM information site based in India, reported, "Currently, Solidworks has offices in 12 cities. By the end of the year the company will expand its presence to 20 cities …" ("SolidWorks will expand presence in India," June 12, 2007, http://machinist.in).

In a report by CyberMedia India Online Ltd. (www.ciol.com), India’s IT news site, Rainer Gawlick, SolidWorks’ VP of worldwide marketing, said, "The Indian CAD/CAM/CAE market is estimated to stand at $540 million with an annual growth rate of 30%, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. We have witnessed a paradigm shift in the usage of engineering design software" ("SolidWorks optimistic on 3D solutions," January 31, 2008).

Innovate3D taps also taps into the CAD talents available through Gasabo 3D (www.gasabo3d.com), a 3D design company stemming from a partnership between Rwanda’s current President Paul Kagame and SolidWorks executives. Located in Kigali, Rwanda, Gasabo 3D operates as a division of the Rwanda Information Technology Authority. The company’s core staff comprises top-ranking engineering students from Kigali Institute of Science and Technology.

Impressed by the CAD files produced by Gasabo 3D, Innovate3D’s Tara noted, "Of the 11 models, 9 have been completed within the same time as my India team, one has been done faster and only one was slower (by one day). My biggest concern, turnaround time, has been addressed. [Gasabo 3D] team has done a very good job so far."

An Alternate View on Outsourcing

In November 2008, when Innovate3D’s CEO visited the office of Gasabo 3D, he had a chance to meet not only the Rwandan SolidWorks users who had been churning out 3D models for him but a high-profile statesman: former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Blair’s visit was part of his Africa Governance Initiative. According to The Office of Tony Blair (http://tonyblairoffice.org), the former head of state thought it was "impressive to see Rwanda embracing technology and innovation to drive forward its own development." He noted, "Technology is a key part of building a strong and prosperous economy in Rwanda and connecting it to the rest of the world ..."

Innovate3D’s Tara, who is also the editor in chief and publisher of Tenlinks.com, recalled fielding questions from Blair during their unexpected encounter in Rwanda. Blair wanted to know how the Rwandan labor rates compare to the U.S. or India. "We tell him Rwanda is a bargain," said Tara.

What’s considered "petty cash" or "a bargain" to a successful U.S. business may be a lifeline for an aspiring engineering student in Kigali, Rwanda. In some cases, outsourcing, a practice often viewed as a threat by those in the developed nations, could well be a gesture of goodwill, a helping hand to rebuild Rwanda’s war-ravaged landscape.

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